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Volume 1, ISSUE 6

SEPTEMBER 2005

Welcome everyone to the September issue of the CoCo Lounge online Magazine.

Games and the CoCo 3 : Games produced during the CoCo 3 era. -by Glen VanDenBiggelaar

This august, I did not really spend all that much time playing and reviewing games, I was trying to make it through Kings Quest 3 and I am about half way through, but boy, are we spoiled with a Hard drive these days! The constant flipping and re inserting disks for Kings quest really detracted from the "Fun" factor of the game. I am ready to load up DosBox and just run it on the PC (i have done this for all the "Larry" Games and it works well).

Thexder (Sierra) Cartridge
Thexder, Was one of the best selling games back in its day, and a quick search on vintage Sierra games, shows that this game was available on all computers at the time. A interesting note, is that The CoCo is the ONLY platform in which this game was released in a "ROM PAK" or cartridge. All other platforms, it was released in floppy disk form. Although, I can't find a reason why, it is my guess that Tandy and Sierra thought that it would sell more as a Cart. I didn't have much success with this game. I suppose if I truly stat down and read the instruction sheet. It is not a "typical shooter"
Thexder is an arcade game that was a major cross-platform hit, selling hundreds of thousands of copies. Loosely based on the Japanese carton Transformers , it featured a robot that could morph itself into a ship. The Coco version, being originally released in cartridge format, only featured 5 complete levels, and no music, as compared to PC versions. On the other hand, it looked really nice, and was also one of the few games that was later ported to OS-9/NitrOS9. An interesting tidbit: From Alan's recoding of the game, it appears that it originally WAS written for OS-9 (internal calls were set up suspiciously like OS-9 System calls, etc.), and only changed to RS-DOS at the last moment, probably to expand the market it was aimed at (no disk drive needed, only 128K needed). While Alan converted it, he also added a few options: Invincibility, and multiple speed levels (including some faster than the original cartridge version). You can still buy the "OS-9" version through Cloud 9. A sequel was made for other platforms, but not for the CoCo.

The Long Road Ahead : Confessions of a newbie PART2. -by Glen VanDenBiggelaar
Starting from Scratch
Its been 20 years since I have last done any work in basic. I though I could get by, but Oh Boy, the memory goes.
I thought I would "start" by going through all the "news letter" floppies I have. The majority ar from the "Mid Iowa & county Christian CoCo community from 1993. Back in its day, it must have been a big publication, but allot of the articles are re-printed from "the rainbow".
I was finding that I could not get into some of my disks, SO a lesson in DECB was in order. I got out the the manual that came with the FD502 drive, and started to go through all the tutorials, thinking that they would all work on my CoCo 3, because the FD502 was mad for the CoCo3, and the cover of the manual was the same graphics as the CoCo3 manual. I soon found out, that when doing the "graphics" program in the middle of the book, I was wrong. I spent all afternoon typing in the program just to get FN errors. But it did show me a lot.
Printing Woes
Most of the "newsletter" disks wanted you to print something out on your printer. I deiced then it was time to hook up my DMP 106 and actually use my printer (or to see if it actually worked). After going through the printer manual, I was fairly confident that I had all the dip switches and everything set up properly. The biggest problem, is that Tandy, wanted to "Pass the buck" and not write anything solid for printing with the CoCo in the printer manuals. I then typed in the "test" programs in the manual for the printer, and promptly received Syntax errors. After carefully re- checking my program and even after re-typing them in, I was still receiving syntax errors. I then deiced to "switch gears" and pull out my CoCo 3 manual. There is no "real Chapter" on printing to a printer, then I discovered the "problem" The CoCo has it's own Basic. To print to the printer, the command is PRINT #-2. In the Printer manual ( I am assuming the BASIC is Tandy 1000 or IBM BASIC) the print command is simply LPRINT. The CoCo 3 manual says "For more information, Please consult your printer's manual"- Tandy is really passing the buck here.
Ok, so I type in a simple test program:

10 Print#-2,"test"
20 Goto 10
30 end
Run
and .... Nothing. the curser "freezes, and nothing happens. Ok, go and check all my cables and connections. Do a "test" print from the printer, everything checks. I then dive into the manual just a bit deeper, hopping to find some "specific" CoCo information. I the try resetting the Dip switches down to 600 BPS. Nowhere, it mentions that in order to print with the Co Co, you have to set the serial port to 600BPS! That 1 little line in the printer manual could have saved hours of frustration. I re-type my test program in again and the printer stars chugging happily away. Good now I have a printer.
09 Blues
in this report, I will refer to both OS-09 and NitrOS 9 by just calling them 09.
I then went back to 09 as I had now found out a bit more on how to "Load" a program to memory and then "Run". I should have recalled this from my Cassette days, but I try to re-press those horrible memories. I now has the information to try to go back through my disks more. I find the the manual for both 9's are hard for the beginner to use. Obviously Tandy did not use the same people to write the 09 manual as the BASIC manual, because the BASIC manual was easy and in plain language. 09 was written for people who had a real knowledge of UNIX and command line programming. I am not going to let this get me down, after all I set up networks, I should be able to figure this all out, RIGHT?
Well after i wen through the first few chapters and learning how to make a backup and disk copy, I wanted to really "Do" something. I went straight to the "windowing" section and the preceded to build my first "window" with the CoCo.
Not being all that familiar with the way UNIX handles windows, I was expecting something like what we see everyday on these XP machines (or at least like windows 3.11). I was not prepared and was a bit disappointed when just the screen cleared, and I was able to switch back and forth between the 2 screens. But all is not lost. I can make overlapping windows and scroll bars, that is my next "project"
Baby Steps
I am jumping all over the place, and my only advice is don't. Be patient, 09 will come, but it won't give you an "Immediate" graphical "Prize" like we have all come to expect in Windows or with a GUI. I am suprised with the popularity of 09, more GUI's were not made. We had the tools and the power and the knowledge. I guess it was because Tandy charged just as much for 09 as a CoCo and you still had to buy a disk drive. Not many people were willing to spend $1000 on a CoCo when for the same price you could get a Tandy 1000, and RS sales people were told to push that machine more than the CoCo

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